Chapter 20: Miscellaneous Quartermaster Services
In the European theater, Quartermasters provided all the services that had been made available in the Mediterranean and a few extra as well.1 Probably the most varied of all Quartermaster activities came under the general heading of “service,” or labor. This commonly implied the stevedore and porterage duties in which QM service companies had been trained, but also came to include the wide variety of functions that these companies were actually called upon to perform. Such units comprised about 45 percent of Quartermaster strength in the theater, and served as a reservoir of semiskilled labor to meet all contingencies. They provided most of the security guards at depots, supervised civilian labor, and guarded prisoners of war. With special training or technical supervision they could and did, on occasion, perform the whole gamut of Quartermaster functions.
A considerable number of service companies, and a few other QM units, were attached or permanently assigned to the other technical services. In February 1945 the OCQM reported that in COMZ alone there were WA service companies being used by Ordnance, 4½ by the Engineers, 6 by the Signal Corps, and 1 by the Transportation Corps, which also utilized 3 QM railhead companies. By the end of hostilities, the Transportation Corps was also using 2 QM service battalion headquarters, and Ordnance had borrowed 2 QM composite company headquarters. In the armies, only headquarters and service companies were involved, but in addition to assignments similar to those in COMZ the distribution of QM service companies to other technical services normally included 2 companies at medical depots, and occasional loan of a company to Civil Affairs and to the Provost Marshal.2
Bath and Laundry Services
Experience in North Africa and Italy had confirmed the desirability of baths and clean clothing for combat troops, but had also demonstrated the extreme difficulty of providing such services in the forward areas. Even at the end of the fighting in Italy the Fifth Army quartermaster concentrated his bath and laundry units at rest areas, where they
were only available to combat troops on rotation. The obsolete and immobile equipment of the QM sterilization companies, the only bath units available until the summer of 1944, was not suitable for employment farther forward.3 Laundry trailers were somewhat less clumsy, but were usually placed near the bath units.
For the European campaign, Quartermaster planners in the United Kingdom were determined to give better service. This was a matter of necessity, since conditions in the ETO brought on urgent problems not encountered in the Mediterranean theater. In a colder climate troops wore more and heavier clothing, which increased the danger of insect infestation. Moreover, plans provided for a steady advance by armored and motorized forces. There would be little opportunity for the rotation into rest areas that was often possible during the Italian campaigns. Under the conditions expected in France, mobile equipment was needed. The OCQM was especially hopeful regarding the improved trailers of the QM fumigation and bath companies. Only five of these new units had reached the ETO by March 1944, but it was hoped that equipment to reorganize the twelve sterilization companies in the theater in conformity with the new T /O&E would arrive before D-day. The equipment never arrived, and the Engineers, who were responsible for baths for comfort and cleanliness, suffered a similar disappointment. The ETO Chief Engineer had requisitioned boo mobile shower units in the spring of 1944, but by July only 32 units, all earmarked for the USAAF, had arrived, and there was no prospect that any more would be available before the end of the year. In theory, delousing was the primary mission of the QM fumigation and bath company and the sterilization company, but the OCQM had also made plans to provide as many baths as possible for the troops. By July only two more fumigation and bath companies had arrived, making a total of seven available for service in the combat zone. The twelve sterilization companies already mentioned could provide 30,000 baths per day, but only in rear areas.4
Production and delivery of the large bath and laundry trailers constituted a major bottleneck, retarding the buildup. From October 1944 to February 1945, the coldest, wettest, and muddiest months that northern Europe had experienced in decades, the 12th Army Group deployed only an average of 12 fumigation and bath companies and 15 semimobile laundry companies in its combat zone, at evacuation hospitals, salvage repair sites, and bath points. Meanwhile the even less well-serviced 6th Army Group had to get along with 3 fumigation and bath companies and 8 laundry companies.5
Besides additional companies of these types, less mobile and more specialized
units were also available to provide the same services in the Communications Zone. For example, in December 1944 there were 16 sterilization companies as well as 7 fumigation and bath companies to give showers to COMZ troops, and 78 fixed laundry sections, each capable of serving a 1,000-bed hospital, to supplement 11½ semimobile laundry companies.6
It might appear that deployment of the units discriminated against combat troops, the more so since service troops had access to civilian laundry and bathing facilities seldom available to those in the front lines. That sentiment was emphatically expressed by the troops themselves at the time, and concurred in by a majority of division quartermasters. On the other hand, the armies did not use their assets very efficiently. They operated the service units actually assigned to them at an average rate of less than half their capacity. Combat quartermasters demanded additional units of the types then available, but they also unanimously recommended the development of smaller, lighter, less vulnerable, and more easily camouflaged equipment, suitable for employment nearer the front. All the various vehicular and mechanical improvisations developed by the combat units were smaller than standard equipment, and the same trend was noticeable in the experimental models under development in the United States at the end of hostilities. It appears that the type of equipment then available could not be operated far enough forward to serve front-line troops effectively, and deployment of more bath and laundry units in the combat zone would not have improved service to combat units.7
Showers in the Field
Four fumigation and bath companies were available to each army during the winter months of the European campaign, but quartermasters later agreed that seven would not have been excessive. The two platoons in the company each had a supply section which maintained a clothing exchange at the shower point and an operating section which took care of a trailer containing 24 shower heads, later increased to 36. Whenever possible, one platoon was attached to each division on the line, thereby enabling the division quartermaster, with his knowledge of the location and mission of the units, to place the platoon closer to the troops to be served. More often one platoon served two divisions, while the other provided baths for corps troops plus another division. A location equally accessible to two headquarters was rather far from both of them, so that service was rarely satisfactory. At maximum capacity, the company could process 3,600 men in a 16-hour day, or an infantry division in slightly more than four days. Such service was only possible under ideal conditions, when a division was withdrawn from combat, when an entire fumigation and bath company was available to serve
it, and when all the necessary supplies were at hand, including 20,000 gallons of clear water daily.8
During the first weeks in Normandy, the critical need for troops and supplies delayed the landing of bath units. Two companies, the 857th and 863rd, were scheduled to arrive on OMAHA by D plus 21, but reports indicate that they did not begin operations until eleven days later. When Colonel McNamara detailed one platoon of the 863rd Fumigation and Bath Company to XIX Corps on 9 July, he also outlined the principles to be followed in making the most efficient use of the unit. Because of the scarcity of units and the size of the beachhead, he emphasized the importance of marching troops to the bath point, rather than taking the bath point to the troops. Because of the vulnerability and conspicuous silhouette of the bathing equipment, he requested that it be located out of range of enemy artillery and carefully concealed from enemy air observation.9
Soon after the bath units began to operate and when divisional quartermasters were able to think about providing some of the less essential services, several combat divisions displayed their own improvisations. The battle-wise 1st Division Quartermaster Company converted a captured German sterilization unit, some pipe, and a latrine screen into a six-head portable shower. About the same time, the 4th Division built its own ten-head unit, which was mounted and carried on the bed of a 2½-ton truck. Before the European campaign was over, many other divisional quartermaster companies confirmed the need for such services by constructing comparable field expedients out of salvaged and captured equipment. In March 1945, the QM company of the 28th Division was finally able to draw one of the mobile Engineer shower units already mentioned from a First Army supply point. It was operated by an ii-man crew and had a maximum daily capacity of 894 men. The entire outfit could be packed on a one-ton trailer.10
The pursuit across France upset the bath program much as it had affected all other Quartermaster activities. Combat troops were moving too quickly to utilize rearward bath points, and frequent displacement of the bath companies made them inoperative over long periods of time. In the fall of 1944 and through the winter, the more stabilized tactical situation encouraged greater use of bath facilities. Troops took advantage of showers and tubs wherever they found them, procedures varying from area to area. On the northern flank of the American line, the 29th and 30th Infantry Divisions and the 2nd Armored, as well as corps and army troops north of Aachen, forsook the tented quartermaster bath units in favor of indoor shower facilities that were available at coal mines in and around Heerlen, Holland.11 On the other hand, First Army units in other areas used the bathing facilities at rest camps operated by corps, and more than 300,000 men were accommodated in
three months from September through November.12
The onset of cold and wet weather in 1944 made the clothing exchange feature of the bath operation as attractive as the hot shower itself. Imitating Fifth Army practices in Italy, First Army started this two-in-one service in July. Third Army was more conservative and waited until the end of November before introducing the clothing exchange.13 Wherever such an exchange was part of the shower serv-ice—the practice was found at divisional as well as at corps shower points—the procedures were very similar to those, discussed earlier, in the Mediterranean area. But one significant difference was that whenever possible bath and laundry units were brought farther forward in the ETO. For example at Homburg Haut, France, one platoon of the 859th Fumigation and Bath Company served 1,500 men of the 80th Division daily within eight miles of the front lines. To maintain a 2,000-set stock of clean clothes for exchange, a platoon of the 899th Semimobile Laundry Company located itself near Homburg Haut and devoted its efforts to laundering all soiled garments that were found serviceable.14
Several divisions in First Army, in an effort to assure an ample stock of clothing for an exchange system, reduced the soldier’s allowance to one complete uniform and held the rest of the issued clothing in a revolving reserve. Garments left behind by casualties, and other miscellaneous salvage, were utilized in the same way. Where this was the practice, it was often possible to obtain a fresh woolen outer uniform as well as clean undergarments at the shower point. Inevitably, the clothing exchange program involved a problem of sorting clothing and measuring it for size. As in Italy, the solution reached was to maintain three sizes only—large, medium, and small. While such a procedure by Class II and IV depots in the rear invariably brought protests, the troops found it acceptable in the forward areas.15
Fumigation and Delousing Activities
In contrast to the trench warfare of World War I, the war of movement in the ETO, plus the shower system and the two-ounce can of insecticide issued to every man, spared the troops the discomfort of body lice known by the veteran of the American Expeditionary Force as “cooties.” Early in continental operations, it became evident that this was not a real threat and that the six methyl bromide fumigation chambers in each fumigation and bath company were superfluous. While still in Normandy, McNamara removed the six chambers from each bath company and assigned them to First Army’s salvage dump, where they remained for most of the continental campaign. Salvaged articles that were not obviously dirty were normally fumigated, rather than washed, before reissue. This applied particularly to woolen articles. Fumigation chambers were often turned over to sterilization
Fumigating wool clothing at a salvage dump in Normandy, July 1944.
companies for use in the base sections, since the steam sterilizers authorized for these units shrank woolens excessively.16
Even if American troops did not need delousing, it was quickly evident that prisoners of war did. The armies were moving too quickly to deal with this problem during the summer, and the responsibility fell to ADSEC. To cope with the situation, the ADSEC quartermaster used several QM sterilization companies. These were less mobile than fumigation and bath companies because of their large van-type steam sterilization and bath trailers, but their large personnel complements made them better equipped to bathe and dust such concentrations of prisoners as the 75,000 collected at Le Mans and Alençon, 15,000 at Suippes, and 50,000 at Compiegne.17
The armies felt no need for fumigation materials or bulk DDT until they entered Germany and exposed the squalor of the Allied prisoner of war camps. In addition to an appalling incidence of malnutrition and pulmonary tuberculosis, the occupants were infested with lice, and outbreaks of typhus occurred in Cologne and Aachen early in March. The persons and possessions of recovered Allied military personnel, displaced persons, and liberated political prisoners had to be fumigated or dusted
with DDT before the people could be permitted freedom of movement, particularly in a westerly direction across the Rhine.18
Laundries
Semimobile laundry companies attempted to operate across Europe in the same way as the bath units, but there were basic defects in the organization and equipment of the laundry units. The supposedly self-sufficient organizational structure of the laundry sections and platoons was hampered by the fact that only four organic truck tractors were provided in each company. These were only able to move the sixteen laundry trailers assigned to the unit by a slow shuttling system, or occasionally by borrowing prime movers from higher echelons. In a war of rapid movement these were awkward improvisations and, judging by the frequency of complaint from the armies, quite inadequate. Moreover, in the ETO laundry priorities went to evacuation hospitals, medical depots, salvage installations, and troop units, in that order. The planned War Department troop basis, five companies per army, was theoretically able to handle the higher priorities plus 37 percent of troop requirements. That allotment did not actually materialize until March 1945, when the cold weather was nearly over, and even then the laundry units handled only 5 to 10 percent of troop laundry. Colonel Busch of Third Army, who was the strongest advocate of additional QM services for the combat troops, recommended ten laundry companies per army. The five companies per army actually assigned in the spring of 1945 were normally distributed as follows: one in support of each of three corps; one split into eight sections serving medical installations; one processing salvage and also serving army troops.19
Attaching a semimobile laundry section to each evacuation hospital proved eminently successful since the vital medical services could have their laundry done without loss of time due to backlogs or transportation difficulties. But such deployment also involved a certain risk of damage by enemy fire as indicated by the repeated instances of Third Army laundry units having been bombed and disabled. Like the shower units, laundry trailers were too large, conspicuous, and vulnerable for satisfactory service in the forward areas.20
The laundries attached to corps operated primarily to serve the clothing exchanges at the bath points. In the fall of 1944, as part of the campaign against trench foot, these laundries assumed the additional responsibility of providing dry socks to the field troops. The program was separate from that of clothing exchange, and one which generally worked through the ration distribution system. Salvage collecting squads were placed at the ration dumps, where they issued clean socks to units on the
basis of morning report strengths, and collected the dirty socks. Occasionally, laundries delivered socks direct to division supply points.21
The theoretical capacity of the laundry companies was service to 48,000 men per week, based upon 6 pieces or 4½ pounds per man laundered in seven 16-hour days. This was frequently achieved when units turned in their laundry in bulk and assumed the responsibility for sorting and distribution to individuals. Operating on the individual bundle system, maximum capacity was 30,000 bundles per week. These were maximum figures, based upon optimum working conditions. Over a period of eleven months, the laundries of the 12th Army Group operated at about 42 percent of capacity. The relative immobility of laundry units meant that they were seldom far enough forward to be readily accessible to combat units. It was found that the laundries supporting corps could rarely establish anything resembling a regular schedule. Combat forces were subject to movement on short notice, there was no uniformity in the amounts of laundry brought in by the units, and high priority orders appeared without warning. The Ninth Army concluded that it was preferable simply to make arrangements with the laundry companies on a catch-as-catch-can basis, and Third and Seventh Army records provide supporting evidence.22 An illuminating day-by-day account of the frustrations endured by a field unit in seeking laundry service was presented by the 404th Field Artillery Group in a detailed chronology intended to prove that “laundry facilities have been both inadequate and unsatisfactory:”
8 Dec 44, the 899th Laundry Company located in the vicinity of Fremery was preparing to move and therefore refused to accept laundry from this unit.
13 Dec 44, the 899th Laundry Company located in the vicinity of Remering refused acceptance of laundry of this unit as they had more laundry than they could handle at this time.
16 Dec 44, the 899th Laundry Company ... stated that since they were handling laundry for two divisions, it would be impossible to handle laundry from this unit for the time being.
18 Dec 44, the 899th Laundry Company ... accepted the laundry of this unit but only after considerable persuasion.
24 Dec 44, when an attempt was made to recover laundered items it was found that the 899th Laundry Company had moved. After investigation ... it was found that the laundry had been left in an adjacent field. Investigation revealed that among 47 bundles laundered, there were many items missing as well as a complete bundle. Further inspection of laundered items revealed that a majority ... were very soiled.23
It should be noted that the poor performance recorded above was that of a unit operating under the inefficient bundle system. Laundries that operated in the forward areas in support of clothing exchanges usually did much better—one reason being that the revolving stock system reduced sorting operations. In December 1944 and January 1945 the
laundries of Third Army, operating mainly in direct support of bath points, produced 97 percent and 103 percent respectively of their theoretical capacity. Laundry units in First Army showed wide variations in performance, from the 38 percent showing of one green unit to an astonishing 121 percent of capacity, maintained for 68 consecutive days by the 595th QM Laundry Company supporting V Corps.24
Immediately behind the combat zone ADSEC operated a modest number of semimobile laundry companies, primarily to provide service for salvage installations. Here again troop clothing had the lowest priorities and could only be laundered when military or civilian facilities developed capacity in excess of primary requirements.25 When ADSEC’s seventeen general hospitals began to arrive on the Continent in the middle of July 1944, each was assigned a fixed hospital-type laundry platoon which, for all practical purposes, was an organic part of the medical installation. Because of this affiliation, hospitals obtained dependable laundry service during the breakthrough period; they were the only ADSEC units to do so.
ADSEC laundry units in Normandy experienced various technical and organizational difficulties. Swift moving currents provided adequate quantities of water, but many streams were so shallow that the pumps sucked in dirt and loose materials, and became clogged. To prevent this, the laundry units deepened the stream beds and submerged box frames to form a still pool from which clear water could be drawn. Meanwhile, the main administrative problem of the laundry units attached to hospitals could be traced to a lack of enough Quartermaster officers to permit the assignment of an officer to each platoon. The units were headed by QM noncommissioned officers and commanded by the senior officer of the medical unit to which they were attached. The laundry officer of ADSEC’s Quartermaster Section attempted to supervise their technical operations, but this was an impossible task for one man, and a satisfactory remedy to the problem was never found.26
Since ADSEC’s quartermaster base depots were somewhat more static than the depots and dumps in the combat zone, it was easier for that echelon to supplement its laundry shortages by exploiting commercial facilities in the cities and towns along the axis of advance. In fact, ADSEC’s initial operations on the Continent began in the second week of July—about the same time that First Army provided such service to the combat troops—when four commercial laundries in Cherbourg and their civilian workers went to work for the Americans. As was usual in the case of any procurement of local services, extensive repairs had to be made to the plants and operating supplies had to be furnished. In Belgium, ADSEC, again surveyed commercial facilities and began negotiations for their use. In Namur and Liège, static Belgian military laundries were available, again after making repairs and
installing equipment, but the services of the Liège plant were periodically interrupted by enemy V--1 bombs.27
Meanwhile, COMZ service troops throughout France, especially in the urban areas, looked to commercial facilities. Where troops were billeted in hotels, where the American Red Cross maintained overnight accommodations for troops on leave or furlough, and where transient billets were situated along arterial military highways, it was necessary to obtain laundry services from local plants. These were generally available, but not before repairing or replacing equipment and furnishing coal, soap, and bleach. In addition to these and other delays inherent in the local procurement program, prices, bundle sizes, and transportation also had to be agreed upon.28 Ultimately working arrangements were reached, but it is safe to conclude that “locally procured” laundry service negotiated by the individual soldier who reimbursed a laundress with cigarettes, candy, soap, or rations was in many respects the single most satisfactory system for keeping troops in clean clothing.
Salvage Collection and Repair
For two years in the United Kingdom, each base section had been largely responsible for its own salvage. Depots within each section specialized in the various salvage categories—clothing, equipment, general supplies, and footwear. Unit supply officers sorted salvage carefully and insured that it was forwarded to the correct depot, since new items could only be obtained in exchange for old ones. In the last few weeks before D-day, a combination of factors overloaded the salvage organization and caused complete breakdown of this procedure. The normal seasonal turn-in of winter clothing coincided with preparations for an amphibious attack, and combat troops discarded many slightly worn articles which would have been considered entirely adequate for garrison duty. Meanwhile, Colonel McNamara had issued specific orders that the assault troops were to turn in a whole list of individual clothing and equipment items considered nonessential in the initial operation of seizing a beachhead. Carrying the same idea one step further, combat commanders made similar reductions in the organizational equipment of their units. Having experienced somewhat similar conditions during the TORCH operation, the OCQM designated most of the QM depots in the British Isles and all of the assembly areas near the south coast of England as salvage collection points. Lydney (Q-140) on the lower Severn was set up as a central salvage repair depot.29
The departing combat units turned in a veritable avalanche of unwanted items, averaging ten pieces per man and considerably exceeding the amounts anticipated by the OCQM. Salvage was a new additional assignment for most of the depots, earlier concerned with storage alone. Receipts ran as high as 6,000,000
pieces per week, and arrived as an unsorted mixture of old and new articles, wet and dry, clean and dirty—Quarter-master items indiscriminately mixed with those of the other technical services and of British accommodation stores. Inexperienced junior officers, assigned to what depot commanders regarded as a low-priority activity, had to tackle their problems mainly with newly hired British civilian labor. Worst of all, the OCQM had not yet formulated any policy on decentralized sorting, processing, return to stock, or reissue of salvaged QM articles. On 14 June Littlejohn began a memorandum on the subject to his deputy with the statement “We are definitely behind the eight ball on our salvage activities.” 30 The Chief Quartermaster directed that an SOP for salvage operations be published immediately, that the departure of certain laundry and fumigation and bath units to the Continent be delayed, that laundry and dry cleaning service for garrison troops in the United Kingdom be temporarily suspended, and that fumigation, rather than laundry or dry cleaning, be performed on all clothing and blankets not visibly dirty. Colonel Bennison of the Installations Division was to have ready a coordinated salvage plan, concurred in by all concerned, within the week, and Colonel Rosaler of Field Service was to monitor its execution. But an unmanageably large backlog had been built up before these positive measures were taken, and the U.K. salvage organization took seven months to work its way through the accumulation.
The commitment of U.S. troops on the Continent immediately presented a salvage problem almost as great and of a different kind. Much equipment had been damaged and abandoned, but still more was lost or thrown away by men who seemed to have forgotten even the rudiments of supply discipline. The American soldier—frequently confident to the point of arrogance about the limitless production facilities of the United States—was all too inclined to be careless and extravagant with his equipment. Also, practically every battle casualty, whether a litter case, walking wounded, or only a victim of battle fatigue, was sure to lose or discard much of his equipment, and probably some clothing as well. Salvage was therefore primarily a matter of collection and segregation. It was possible to return to stock a surprisingly high proportion of all salvaged clothing and equipment, either without any processing at all, or at most after scrubbing, laundering, or fumigation. Specific percentages of the various categories of salvage collected in the ETO that could be returned to use, either as Class B for U.S. troops or as Class X for other personnel, are given below:31
| Clothing | Equipage | Regular Supplies | Footwear | |
| Class B | 32 | 73 | 77 | 46 |
| Repaired | (4) | (16) | (37) | (14) |
| Returned without repair | (28) | (57) | (40) | (32) |
| Class X | 53 | 20 | 8 | 43 |
| Repaired | (9) | (4) | (1) | (26) |
| Returned without repair | (44) | (16) | (7) | (17) |
| Scrap (unrepairable) | 15 | 7 | 15 | 11 |
Salvage collection at dump in Normandy, July 1944.
Salvage collecting companies had a theoretical capacity to support 75,000 men, and salvage repair companies (semimobile), a capacity for 50,000 men. For an army of 3,000,000 men, the requirement was therefore 40 and 60 companies, respectively, but actual numbers on hand by the end of 1944 were 16 collecting and 19 repair units, increased to 21 of each by the end of hostilities. The actual capacity of these units was considerably greater than expected, but there was nevertheless a serious shortage of salvage capacity, especially in the combat zone. Analyzing the ETO experience in retrospect, Littlejohn recommended a troop basis of four companies of each type per army, instead of three as used during the European campaign, and even this allotment was based on the assumption that semimobile repair companies were to do minor repairs only, evacuating all other salvage material to fixed repair companies in the Communications Zone.32
As in the Mediterranean theater, the fixed salvage repair company was located exclusively in the Communications Zone, and did not operate. Rather, it was a supervisory headquarters controlling very large numbers of civilian employees, POW’s, and commercial concerns under contract. Used in this way, a fixed salvage repair company had a capacity far in excess of its rated ability to support 100,000 men. The three companies available in the ETO gave fairly adequate support to the entire theater, either by repairs in their own
shops or by arranging commercial contracts.33
While salvaged articles arrived at depots in better condition than had been anticipated and required a minimum of processing, the wartime volume of salvage received on the Continent was far greater than expected. After hostilities came to an end it increased still more, although receipts never again reached the tremendous volume of salvage turned in as the troops were leaving the British Isles in June 1944. Expressed in terms of pieces turned in per thousand men per month, ETO salvage experience before, during, and after combat operations was as follows:34
| Situation | Operational | |||
| Static U.K. Experience | Expected Continent | Actual Continent | Post Operational Continent | |
| Category | ||||
| Clothing | 860 | 960 | 2,434 | 3,754 |
| Equipage | 325 | 320 | 603 | 1,426 |
| Regular supplies | 25 | 10 | 84 | 189 |
| Footwear | 85 | 100 | 169 | 288 |
| Total | 1,295 | 1,390 | 3,290 | 5,657 |
Salvage in the Combat Zone
Service companies attached to the Engineer brigades began to collect salvage on both OMAHA and UTAH Beach a few days after the initial landings. Two QM salvage collecting companies were in Normandy by D plus 30, and thereafter dispatched patrols daily to recover what had not been carried to the
Class I truckheads on returning ration trucks. Shortly after the liberation of Cherbourg, the 229th QM Salvage Collecting Company opened a collecting point there, designated warehouses that would be used for storage and processing when facilities permitted, and began hiring civilian labor. On 25 July salvage activities in Cherbourg came under the command of the 56th QM Base Depot, and thereafter base depots were the normal administrative link between each base section and its salvage units. Three Quartermaster salvage repair companies were operating under First Army by 22 July, and by 1 August, notwithstanding their frequent movement, they had processed and repaired more than 100,000 pieces of equipment.35
During the period of pursuit, salvage repair companies, like other units with heavy equipment, were unable to keep up with the combat troops; the gap between them and the front lines hampered efficient handling of salvage. Also, the scarcity of Class II and IV supplies in this period discouraged the troops from turning in anything not completely unserviceable. Littlejohn wrote to Feldman on 19 September: “The lantern problem is quiet as the troops are moving too fast to light one.”36 But the Chief Quartermaster was well aware that the gasoline lantern was a fragile and temperamental piece of equipment, which required careful servicing. It had already given trouble, and would become the subject of loud complaints as
soon as the pursuit ended. Other equipment was also far from satisfactory. Normal QMC policy in previous campaigns had been to repair lanterns, field ranges, immersion heaters, and similar items in base shops, or to turn over such duties to Ordnance if possible.37 Littlejohn was convinced that in large-scale operations, where a communications zone had to support several armies, such a procedure would give very slow service and leave the troops without their equipment for extended periods of time. The conventional QM salvage repair company (semimobile) was only equipped to repair shoes, clothing, and tentage. As early as May 1944, he was considering the inclusion of a six-man mechanical repair section in these companies to provide combat zone service to general-purpose QM equipment such as field ranges and lanterns, which were used throughout the Army. On D-day General Lee made the Chief Quartermaster solely responsible for maintaining special-purpose QM equipment as well—that is, the distinctive equipment of QM units, such as sewing machines, gasoline dispensers, and the trailer-mounted equipment of bakery, laundry, bath, and mobile refrigeration units. These had previously been the maintenance responsibility of Ordnance, but earlier in the year the ETO Chief Ordnance Officer had declared that other duties having higher priority would make it impossible to provide this service on the Continent.
One such duty was battlefield salvage of heavy Ordnance items, theoretically a QM responsibility, but performed by the Ordnance Service in the ETO. The seven-man Ordnance detachments with the QM collecting companies were kept very busy at the truckheads, sorting out small arms, ammunition, and other Ordnance items. In January 1945 the 237th Salvage Collecting Company (XII Corps) was receiving about 30,000 rounds of ammunition per week, much of it in damaged belts and in the pockets of salvaged clothing. Signal and Chemical Warfare Service detachments with the company were similarly employed to process salvaged articles for their respective services.38
Salvage collection procedures in the combat areas were fully developed by November 1944. OCQM directives emphasized the use of organic personnel for salvage collection all across the Continent, but compliance varied from unit to unit. The 5th Infantry Division, for example, dispatched a daily salvage patrol of four infantrymen and one 2½-ton QM company truck to scour its area for abandoned clothing and equipage.39 By contrast, the 80th Division, supporting the 6th Armored Division during the November campaign around Metz, exhibited a disregard for property that ultimately provoked an investigation by the inspector general of XII Corps.
Along a two-mile stretch of road in the 80th Division area, an inspector general officer picked up almost 200 items, ranging from wool overcoats to full boxes of caliber .30 ammunition, and still left much scattered about the area. Believing that infantry usually remained in an area longer than armor, the inspector recommended that wherever an infantry division supported an armored unit the infantry be made responsible for salvage collection.40
Role of the Reorganized Salvage Repair Company (Semimobile)
Special-purpose QM equipment, even more emphatically than the general-purpose items, was too scarce and precious to remain deadlined in rear area repair shops. To fulfill his new maintenance responsibilities, Littlejohn organized a twelve-man equipment maintenance platoon in each semimobile salvage repair company. This platoon was completely mobile and able to repair any Quartermaster item of a mechanical nature. Its major piece of organic equipment was a machine shop, improvised by converting one of the company’s textile repair trailers. Its personnel were taken partly from a pool of cellular-type mechanical maintenance teams available in the United Kingdom, and partly from existing unit organizations, and retrained in specialized mechanical skills at Lydney Depot (Q-140). Since the modified company was unchanged in personnel strength and the necessary extra equipment was available locally, the Chief Quartermaster authorized the new company organization by QM circular letter on 28 August 1944. Thereafter, companies in the Communications Zone were modified as retrained personnel became available and exchanged for the conventional companies already attached to the armies.41
The specialists in the equipment platoon were expected to give instruction on preventive maintenance and the proper way to make repairs. An important feature of these platoons was the supply of spare parts they carried for their own use and for issue to the combat units they served. Apparently there was some difficulty in introducing this new concept in the middle of a campaign, for in November Littlejohn wrote to Franks: “I don’t want any more statements that the troops do not need the parts. What they need are spare parts plus some help in fixing their equipment.”42
Reports from the combat units indicate that whenever parts were available, the units themselves completed a very considerable volume of repairs. Repair sections within the QM companies of the 4th, 8th, and 84th Divisions averaged repairs to three field-range fire units and two typewriters per day. Parts for lanterns and one-burner stoves arrived sporadically, and repairs to these items
Mobile shoe repair trailer designed to serve combat units in the field.
ran as high as twenty per day for brief periods. The quartermaster of the 28th Division decided not to organize a repair section within his QM company, since not enough spare parts were available to make such a step worthwhile. Conversely, the 83rd Division quartermaster did not engage in repair activities because his division was so well served by the 202nd QM Battalion. This First Army unit controlled all the army’s salvage collection and salvage repair companies, usually three of each, and several laundries. It was normally located at the First Army Class II and IV depot, and was apparently able to give prompt service to combat units despite being separated from them by considerable distances—in January 1945, for example, the 83rd Division was 75 miles forward from Wavre, Belgium, where the 202nd was currently located. The fact that shoe repair trailers and the mobile equipment repair platoons already mentioned were sent forward to serve individual combat units as required undoubtedly contributed to this satisfactory service.43
Nevertheless, Littlejohn and the
USFET General Board later agreed that a less centralized employment of salvage units, as practiced in Third Army, was preferable. Its method involved a separate salvage center supporting each corps, consisting of a salvage collecting company, a salvage repair company, one or more fumigation chambers, and three or more laundry sections. Details from the salvage collecting company not only collected salvage at Class I truckheads but also sorted it and, using their own transportation, routed material to the army Class II and IV depot, to laundries, or to the adjacent salvage repair company. The only Third Army salvage activity operating centrally for the whole army was a special field range repair unit, formed from one platoon of the 3234th QM Service Company. The Seventh and Ninth Armies conducted salvage operations under an even less centralized system. Collecting companies attached to each corps evacuated salvage back to specific repair companies, usually located deep in the army zone. Mobile equipment-maintenance platoons operated forward with the collecting companies, but otherwise there was little liaison between the two types of salvage units.44
Regardless of the method employed to handle the flow of salvage, statistics of the 12th Army Group clearly show that salvage repair capacity was inadequate in the combat zone. In particular, the poor showing of the repair companies during mobile operations casts doubt on the correctness of their designation as semimobile. They did their best work when the situation was relatively static, confirming the opinion that their equipment, like that of laundry and bath units, was too heavy and slow moving for mobile modern warfare. Relative performance during the month ending 15 February 1945, when the situation was fairly static, and during the month ending 15 April, when the armies were advancing across Germany, well illustrates the difference:45
| Month Ending | ||
| 15 Feb 45 | 15 Apr 45 | |
| Salvage collecting companies available | 8 | 11 |
| — Total salvage collected (pieces) | 3,747,324 | 4,433,560 |
| Salvage collected per company per day | 15,110 | 13,001 |
| — Total shipped to COMZ | 2,355,863 | 2,977,363 |
| Salvage repair companies available | 9 | 10 |
| — Total salvage repaired (pieces) | 525,718 | 233,999 |
| Salvage repaired per company per day | 1,884 | 755 |
| Reissued or returned to stock, unrepaired | 421,880 | 1,269,794 |
As the above tabulation shows, the salvage collecting companies, which were also responsible for a good deal of sorting, reissue, and return to stock, made a far greater contribution to ETO supply during both static and mobile situations. The USFET General Board concluded that the solution was a larger number of smaller and more mobile repair units, preferably incorporated into the combat divisions. In particular, the board felt that to evacuate large quantities of unprocessed material to COMZ for repair and then return it to the forward areas
was “an obvious waste of transportation and in-transit stocks.”46
Problems of Classification, Repair Priority, and Reissue
The repair companies were aware of the advantages of performing repairs on the spot. Whenever the tactical situation made it possible they sent forward tent repair teams, typewriter repair teams, and the shoe repair trailers already mentioned. Besides saving transportation, such on-the-spot repairs had the additional psychological value of keeping articles entirely out of the much maligned salvage cycle. A unit working directly for its “customers” could provide personal service to the original owner. Such service went far to overcome the prejudice of the troops against used articles, which were regarded as “repaired” if returned to their owners, but as “salvage,” and by inference junk, if reissued. Littlejohn gave a good deal of personal attention to the problem of persuading the troops, and more important their commanders, to accept Class B—used but serviceable—clothing and equipment. Army Regulations and theater circulars directed that Class B items be issued before Class A, but were often ignored. Early in the campaign units were inclined to shop around until they found a depot which had no Class B stocks, and therefore issued new (Class A) items on all requisitions. With increasing shortages, the troops found used but serviceable articles, particularly winter clothing, to be acceptable, and issuing Class B ahead of Class A became the normal procedure in the ETO. The one exception made was the issue of Class A clothing for reasons of morale to convalescents discharged from hospitals. But the troops retained strong views on accepting reclaimed shoes, and in general their commanders supported them. Irrespective of condition, repaired shoes that could not be returned to the original owner were usually evacuated to COMZ for use by civilians or prisoners of war.47
The decision as to what was suitable for reissue in the combat zone, either with or without repairs, and what was only suited for issue to prisoners of war or civilian refugees, presented a difficult problem. In general, separate standards had to be set up for each item, based upon relative scarcity or abundance as well as physical condition, and such standards were modified to correspond to changing supply levels. Top priorities for the repair units were usually identical with the controlled items lists of Class II and IV depots, but there were some exceptions. For example, a major consideration in deciding that most repaired shoes were to be considered Class X was the need for more POW laborers, who required the shoes to perform effective outdoor work. Such revisions of general policy aggravated an already confused situation. Items processed in the United Kingdom shortly after D-day for shipment to the Continent were in particularly chaotic condition. During the second half of November 1944 the
OCQM received complaints from combat units of First Army that items arriving in the forward areas marked Class B were not suitable for issue, and also reports from its own field liaison officers that 80 percent of the clothing located at UTAH marked Class X was actually combat serviceable and included such scarce items as field jackets. Col. Beny Rosaler, chief of the Field Service Division, had ready solutions for both problems: he recommended that combat units be educated to accept garments of less than parade-ground elegance, and he also urged that the field jackets be shipped to the 64th QMBD, recently moved to Reims, for sorting. But on the central problem of classification he could only comment that it required highly qualified personnel with good judgment.48
Salvage in the Rear Areas
For all the emphasis on pushing salvage services into the forward areas, the steady accumulation of salvage created a mountainous backlog in the rear areas for processing and storage. Salvage installations at Marseille, Dijon, and Vesoul supporting the 6th Army Group were operated largely by Italian service units. By the end of the year base depots at Cherbourg, Rennes, Le Mans, Paris, Reims, and Liège were all conducting salvage operations for the 12th Army Group. For labor they used non military personnel almost exclusively. At first the depots depended mainly on civilians, including some displaced Russian women who were very willing workers. Administrative difficulties in moving such personnel forward, however, and the increasing availability of POW’s encouraged the depots to use larger numbers of prisoners. The base sections also made maximum use of commercial repair facilities, but these ventures were often delayed by such difficulties as disrupted public utilities and the absence of proper equipment. Reminiscent of Quartermaster experiences in North Africa and Italy, Brittany Base Section reported that repairs by a French shoe factory would be possible only if the Americans could provide a power generator, bench jacks, diesel oil, and sewing and stitching machines.49
The largest single salvage installation in the ETO was Q-256, established at Reims on 29 September 1944. It was administered by the 64th QM Base Depot and operated by the 696th QM Salvage Repair Company (Fixed) . These two units had been trained together at Lydney. Tables of Organization provided that such a combined salvage headquarters would operate with 586 attached service troops or civilian employees. Under the command of Col. Albert Barden, this unit ultimately supervised some twenty times that number, largely prisoners of war, and undertook fifth echelon
maintenance and manufacturing projects never contemplated by the War Department. Patterning the organization after the one Colonel Hutchins had initiated at Depot Q-180—also at Reims—Barden set up an elaborate German officer staff, which handled practically all details of POW administration, both in the prison compound and in the shops. Colonel Bennison, who as Oise Section quartermaster was generally responsible for all QM operations at Reims, made the following observations on the use of German personnel:50
Without recourse to a scheme of this sort, a salvage depot will never do its job as the organic troops assigned are sufficient only to form a skeleton organization. After V-E Day when the now notorious point system disrupted the American Army, this depot as well as most of the other QM depots were operated 90% by Germans. Incidentally, one couldn’t ask for better personnel. We made the barest pretense of guarding and even the Germans had many a laugh at the futility of our efforts. To paraphrase Mr. Churchill, “Never were so many guarded by so few.”
Depot Q-256, with its facilities scattered throughout the city of Reims, received overflow salvage directly from the armies. In addition to routine processing and packaging, the depot conducted a program of manufacturing, remodeling, and improvisation. Scrap materials were used to reinforce paratroop trousers, fabricate BAR belts and rocket ammunition pouches, and patch tentage.
Materials ostensibly destined for scrap were converted into other types of end items: old tires were used to make soles for prisoners’ shoes, badly torn shirts and raincoats were transformed into wiping rags, aprons, and typewriter covers, and old wool was converted into “shoddy” blankets.51
Besides the fixed repair activities at Reims salvage depot, twelve mobile repair teams and two technical crews worked out of this installation in answer to calls from the field. Whenever the teams found damaged equipment that could not be readily repaired in the field, they exchanged a repaired item for the disabled one and thus reduced to a minimum the time units had to spend without the use of their equipment. Captured articles provided the revolving fund for this extra service. The depot also sent individual technicians to various other depots to train prisoners and civilian employees in specialized repairs.52
Ultimately, Q-256 also had to operate a complete machine shop where motors and other heavy equipment, including QM equipment trailers, were rebuilt, although this was originally a responsibility of Ordnance. Such activities were performed in rented French shops with captured German lathes, presses, and other heavy duty machinery. Sufficient machine tools were available to permit the occasional manufacture of badly needed spare parts such as flame cups for one-burner stoves and rotors for gasoline
dispensers.53 By the end of March 1945 the Reims salvage depot occupied 500,000 square feet of closed space and 350,000 feet of open space; this was more than double the total space set aside for Quartermaster salvage and reclamation in all the U.K. depots as of January 1944. At the close of 1944, the depot had processed nine million items, and in March 1945 it was handling 160,000 pieces per day.54
Meanwhile the 223rd QM Salvage Company (Fixed) had been handling a considerably smaller central salvage operation for the 6th Army Group at Vesoul, nominally under the control of the 71st QMBD at Dijon. In December, the equipment for a full-sized base salvage installation arrived at Marseille, and preliminary plans were made to establish it at Strasbourg. The German counteroffensive in the Ardennes made it necessary to revise the plan, and by late January it had been decided to install the new plant at Nancy, where Salvage Depot Q-599 was already operating. At this location the installation would come under the direct supervision of the 73rd QM Base Depot, then en route from England. Repaired clothing would go to Depot Q-186, which opened at Nancy at about the same time. As a first step, the 7176th Semimobile Salvage Repair Company (Italian) was sent forward and began operating in trailers on 24 February. During March two more Italian units, the 7134th and 7177th, moved up from Vesoul to Nancy, and by the end of the month the 9026th and 9032nd PW Labor Companies (German) (Salvage Repair) had also arrived. Progress in installing the fixed plant for the use of the 223rd Salvage Repair Company was slow, but on 15 March the new salvage depot was formally activated and given the designation Q-257, in conformity with the COMZ depot numbering system. Colonel Rosaler, who had recently replaced Colonel Bennison as chief of the Installations Division, inspected the new depot on 27 March. He recommended that Q-257 give salvage support to Third Army as well as to Seventh Army. Salvage receipts from the 1st French Army had been negligible since the formal separation of French Base 901 from CONAD on 19 February.55
Warm weather ensued in April soon after a resumption of the offensive east of the Rhine. Under mobile tactical conditions, there was little prospect that the turn-in of winter clothing and equipment would be more orderly than it had been in Great Britain a year earlier. To prevent normal salvage channels from being swamped, the OCQM instructed ADSEC and CONAD to establish special installations to receive the clothing. The main requirements were good transportation and unloading facilities and ample covered storage space where unsorted clothing could be dried and protected from the weather until processed. Sites with these characteristics were at a premium and not available at all in the most desirable forward locations. Accordingly, ADSEC set up a temporary
depot at Seilles near Huy, Belgium, and CONAD selected a site at Thaon near Epinal. By 7 April both these installations had been transferred to Oise Intermediate Section. At Seilles, Depot Q-179—B was operated by a detachment from the 58th QM Base Depot, assisted by the 176th QM Laundry Company and over 500 civilian employees. This force segregated Class A and B clothing, performed minor repairs and laundering, and shipped serviceable clothing to Q185 at Lille, the new Class II depot for the First and Ninth Armies. Depot Q-256 at Reims received Class C items for major repairs and Class X items for issue to POW’s. Similarly, Q-257—B at Thaon sent serviceable items to Q-186 at Metz, the new Third and Seventh Army clothing depot, and articles needing repairs to Q-257 at Nancy. Everything intended for combat troops was sorted for size and baled before shipment. The labor force at Thaon consisted of a QM battalion headquarters, a laundry company, 300 civilians, 2,350 prisoners, and a service company for guard duty. Inevitably, some winter clothing strayed into normal salvage channels, but when Seilles and Thaon suspended operations in early July, over 10,000 tons of winter clothing, footwear, gloves, headgear, and sleeping bags were packed and ready to follow the troops leaving the European theater on redeployment.56
Redeployment led to a major increase in QM salvage activities, and was largely responsible for the fact that the rate of salvage receipts jumped from 3,290 pieces per thousand men per month during combat to 5,657 pieces after V-E Day. Redeployment salvage operations were concentrated in the Oise Intermediate Section, in direct support of the Assembly Area Command. This organization operated seventeen tent cities in the general vicinity of Reims. With a capacity of 270,000 men at a time, the camps were in use for nearly a year. Units being redeployed were instructed to bring all clothing and equipment with them to the AAC camps, where those going directly to the Far East would replenish their TIE allowances of combat serviceable clothing and equipment by replacement, repair, laundry, dry cleaning, or initial issue as required. Troops returning to the United States retained only minimum essential equipment, but were more concerned with the condition of their uniforms than were troops headed for the Pacific.57
Quartermaster difficulties in providing these services were aggravated by the large number of QM units that were also being redeployed and therefore not available to service other troops. During May 1945 the number of nonmilitary personnel employed by the Oise Section quartermaster increased from 58,000 to 71,000, while alert notices decreased the working force of QM troops from 17,000 to about 14,000. The AAC operated somewhat like a field army, and the AAC quartermaster, Col. Richard B.
Thornton, had corresponding duties. The 75th Infantry Division was pressed into QM duty to give direct support in the camps themselves. Rear area support was provided largely by non-American units. On 31 May 1945, a total of 155 such units were operating in Oise Section alone, and 86 more had been authorized for activation as follows:
| POW | (German) | Italian | Mobile Civilian | |
| Bakery companies | 6 | (3) | 2 | |
| Depot supply companies | 10 | 4 | ||
| Fumigation and bath companies | 1 | 1 | ||
| Gasoline supply companies | 3 | (1) | 1 | |
| Laundry companies | 5 | (5) | 2 | |
| Railhead companies | 7 | (4) | 1 | |
| Salvage collecting companies | 1 | 1 | ||
| Salvage repair companies | 8 | (1) | 5 | |
| Service companies | 59 | (64) | 15 | 23 (8) |
With the above labor force, Oise Inter-mediate Section calculated that it could process 2,627,231 QM articles of all types through its salvage facilities each week and also provide 444,800 pounds of laundry and 227,000 pounds of dry cleaning weekly.58
Spare Parts
The Mediterranean theater had introduced Americans to the problems of spare parts supply, including exasperating difficulties with extra parts for British-manufactured equipment, which had to be forwarded by Littlejohn’s organization. Spare parts was an enormously complicated technical subject, involving tens of thousands of distinct and separate items of supply, each with its own specific purpose and distinctive maintenance factor. The storage and distribution difficulties experienced in supplying balanced rations and correctly computed clothing tariffs were multiplied a thousandfold in regard to spare parts. Information on the subject, even after two years of war, was fragmentary, self-contradictory, and at once too detailed and too inaccurate to form a basis for intelligent generalizations. Any effort at improved reporting was hampered by lack of standardization, of parts catalogues, and of interchangeable parts lists. Many major Quartermaster items of equipment were of prewar commercial design, and the OQMG tended to follow the manufacturer’s own recommendations on parts requirements, based on peacetime commercial operation. Manufacturers were under pressure to increase production of end items and reluctant to make more spare parts. Overseas quartermasters thought this attitude arbitrary and unreasonable, but ASF investigators found that faulty overseas distribution practices apparently caused as many spare parts shortages as did the actual wear and tear of continuous operation under combat conditions.59
While U.S. units were training in Great Britain before D-day, they found no serious fault with the scale of spare parts supply provided from the zone of interior. They did find that spare parts packages tended to be small and
inconspicuous, bore markings that were only intelligible to a specialist, and were all too easily mislaid. By early 1944 spare parts culled from all depots in the United Kingdom had been concentrated at Lydney. This became the sole parts depot for special-purpose QM equipment (used only by QM units) and the reserve parts depot for general-purpose QM equipment, used throughout the Army. In theory, NYPE sent a one-year supply of parts with each special-purpose item of equipment, and a six months’ supply with each general-purpose item, but, like the force-marked reserves of expendable supplies that were to accompany U.S. units overseas in 1943, some of the spare parts failed to arrive. Also, there was confusion as to precisely when and how many major items of equipment had arrived overseas, and therefore as to when requisitioning of additional spare parts should begin and for what quantities. Col. Ira Evans visited the ETO in May 1944 and provided considerable clarification, but as late as 5 June Littlejohn expressed some uneasiness about adequacy of requisitions already submitted and about the accuracy of requirements forecasts.60
Plans for the initial assault provided that units were to carry with them a 60-day supply of spare parts for office machines and a so-day supply for other general-purpose QM items. Additional spare parts for field ranges, considered to be the one really vital item of equipment, would also be included in beach maintenance sets and follow-up maintenance sets, which together were designed to maintain supply through D plus 41 (16 July) . For the period from D plus 41 through D plus 90, ADSEC had requisitioned enough spare parts to maintain a 30-day level in each using unit and an additional 30-day supply in the army Class II depot. QM units were to carry a 90-day supply of special-purpose spare parts, which would last until the 64th QM Base Depot could establish a central parts depot on the Continent. In each case the level of supply was in terms of maintenance factors provided by NYPE.61
On learning of this plan, General Gregory pronounced it to be eminently sound and practical, but Littlejohn was still dubious, and on 25 July asked Gregory to send his parts specialist to the ETO to provide still further clarification. The doubt was amply justified, for three days later McNamara forwarded to Littlejohn a letter written by his deputy, Colonel McNally. It said in part:
1. The following items are proving short-lived and are being turned in for salvage with no hope of doing anything about them: lanterns, gasoline; cookers, 1-burner; cookers, 2-burner; heaters, immersion type. This is because there has been no supply of a few simple replacement parts, although all have been asked for. As a result, there is a critical shortage of cookers, and stocks of lanterns and heaters are being depleted.
2. Parts for typewriters, adding machines, and duplicating machines are sorely needed. There are none. Machines which could easily be fixed are now being cannibalized to provide spare parts. Typewriter parts have also been asked for.
McNally further reported that enough
field range parts were on hand or due in by D plus 90 to service 13,400 ranges for a month, but this supply was entirely insufficient. He requested a further 30-day supply for another 18,750 field ranges, to arrive by D plus 90. Even more significantly, he suggested using NATOUSA maintenance factors until revised rates for combat in the ETO could be determined.62
Littlejohn was aware that while McNally’s report was undoubtedly correct as far as the combat zone was concerned it by no means told the whole story. Few of the prescribed reserve spare parts for combat units had actually come ashore with the equipment. Much of this reserve was still on the water awaiting discharge, and more had been mislaid in the huge dumps at the beaches. Moreover, no plans had been made by mid-July for distinctive markings of packages containing such items, nor for their concentration at any one continental port or dump. Yet the Installations Division in the United Kingdom had already shipped over substantial quantities. The Chief Quartermaster remarked: “... unquestionably these stocks will be scattered all over creation and you may or may not get them back together in the next 30/60 days ... Definitely shipments of this kind should go under guard, especially when we are so short ... have every man at the beach, at the dumps etc. watch for these supplies.”63
Littlejohn several times reiterated the instructions about shipping spare parts under guard, adding that they should preferably travel by air and never be surrendered to anyone except authorized QM officers.64 But he also became convinced that quantities on requisition from the United States were insufficient and submitted additional requests by cable. Transportation between Britain and the Continent was so unreliable that he sent in separate requisitions for each destination. Once these requisitions were on file the Chief Quartermaster, with characteristic impatience, started pulling personal wires to have at least part of the shipment moved by air. On 9 August he wrote to the Deputy Quartermaster General:
My Dear Herman,
The spare parts problem has definitely gotten me into the doghouse. My Cheltenham office went to sleep on the assumption that spare parts covered field ranges only and not many of them, hence the necessity of bringing over here all the spare parts that should have been requisitioned a long time ago. ... Will you please put your shoulder to the wheel, get one of the field officers who is currently on orders to come over here by air. Have him catch up these spare parts for lanterns and immersion water heaters, put them in his hip pocket ... find me and make delivery.65
Feldman replied two days later that the “field officer” would be Brig. Gen. Carl A. Hardigg, who was flying to the ETO to confer on subsistence problems. It is unlikely that any field officer would have been allowed a “hip pocket” large enough to carry the cargo Hardigg brought with him:
1,200 gasoline valves for immersion-type water heaters
400 burner assemblies for immersion-type water heaters
3,000 conversion sets for Coleman gasoline lanterns
3,000 conversion sets for American gasoline lanterns
The weight of this shipment was not recorded, but it amounted to about 10 percent of the entire July requisition of spare parts for the Continent.66
The above episode provided the only bright spot in the spare parts picture during 1944. The marking and packaging for shipment of spare parts was a particular source of grief. Ship manifests recording automatic deliveries of spare parts from the United States only listed so many crates of parts for a major machine. Thus, it was impossible to know what specific parts were in transit until the boxes were received, opened, and tallied. One might expect that shipments from Britain against specific requisitions would arrive in more orderly condition, but this was not the case. Through November, every shipment of parts to Reims from the United Kingdom included several packages that were erroneously marked, and again a time-consuming task of inventorying was required. Some examples of such careless warehousing procedures were markings that read “50 Refractory Bricks,” when the actual contents were twelve GI overcoats, and “Women’s Rayon Hose,” when the contents were radiator hose. Improper markings on the initial stocks of parts for immersion-type water heaters resulted in their loss for months at a time when they were in critical demand. Precisely the same unfortunate situation prevailed at the Marseille depot, which received all its supplies directly from the United States.67
In addition to these problems, spare parts suffered the same pipeline hazards and low priorities as other Class II and IV supplies. The time lag in shipments from New York extended from four to eight months. Since every shipment was deficient in a number of expected items, the spare parts team sent by the ASF to investigate at Q-256 suggested that the Reims depot send an officer to NYPE to accompany the parts shipments through the overseas supply pipeline. The same suggestion was made by the team which inspected Q-572 at Marseille, the only other central parts depot in the ETO.68
Meanwhile the reorganization of the salvage repair companies proceeded very slowly. Even after the reshaping had been completed the new equipment
maintenance platoons did not prove altogether satisfactory as mobile parts depots for the armies. The original plan provided for the following:
| Parts Distribution | Days |
| With the using unit | 30 |
| With the supporting mobile repair unit | 30 |
| With the 64th QM Base Depot | 60 |
| ETO total | 120 |
One difficulty was that, for the majority of items, the size of a thirty-day supply—in other words, the specific maintenance factor—had not been accurately determined. There was even QM-procured equipment for which no stock numbers or specific nomenclature had ever been disseminated overseas. Determination of just what parts should be carried, and in what quantities, was a slow matter of trial and error, and meanwhile excess stocks of some items were built up while others remained so scarce that no reliable data ever became available on how many were needed. In late September Littlejohn instructed his Installations Division to take a middle-of-the-road attitude, neither forcing unwanted parts on the units nor refusing them a small stock of the scarcer items. By this time the OCQM has acquired at least a rough idea of true requirements, but the mobile platoons had proved themselves to be more adept at repairing equipment than at administering stocks of spare parts, and in mid-October Littlejohn suggested that they be removed from the supply chain. Instead, he proposed to issue 30-day credits to each army, to be held in the army’s own Class II dump or in the 64th QM Base Depot, as each army quartermaster preferred.69
Adoption of this procedure somewhat improved the situation, but in December stocks at Q-256 were still seriously short. Transportation was strictly rationed, and it was only occasionally possible to forward a few tons of spare parts from the ports to Reims. Any improvement was anticipated more from local procurement, especially in Belgium, than through shipments from the United States or from England. Although no parts for gasoline dispensers had been received, the depot managed to repair every dispenser turned in. Like the semimobile repair companies, the 64th QMBD was more efficient at repairing equipment than at administering a depot, and in January 1945 Colonel Duncan, chief of the Military Planning Division, OCQM, was very dubious about the accuracy of the spare parts inventories submitted. This was rather serious since the OCQM maintained no stock record cards on spare parts, and all requisitions on the United States were based on these inventories. He proposed that preparation of requisitions be turned over to the Spare Parts Branch, Installations Division, and recommended that ten more clerks and five more typists be assigned to that unit. In March 1945, officers of an ASF—QM spare parts team reported that inventory and stock accounting procedures at Q-256, Reims, were admirable, but the records were so new that they
provided little useful information. The main reason was that stock levels had only recently improved, and many items never previously available had been added to the inventories. Significantly, parts depots in the ETO did not maintain back-order files, a typical practice of depots which have been plagued by non-availability of supplies.70
One autonomous spare parts operation deserves special notice. Colonel Mac-Manus ran his bakery units entirely with British military equipment, which had been field-tested, and for which spare parts maintenance factors were known. But, illustrating the extreme complexity of every spare parts problem, MacManus was unable to adopt British maintenance factors since they were based on interchangeability of parts between bakery units and other diesel-electric powered British machinery, notably the equipment of searchlight and radar units. With some difficulty, MacManus was able to get approval for increased maintenance factors, since his spare parts depot would be serving only fifty-five mobile bakeries, in contrast to the hundreds of units of various types supported by corresponding British parts depots. The same unfavorable distribution factor applied to the American equipment used by the mobile refrigeration companies. Copying the procedures of the bakery units, subsistence officers set up a mobile refrigeration spare parts depot at the same location, on the Isle St. Germain. These were the only categories of QM equipment not served by the 64th QM Base Depot.71
Captured Enemy Materiel
Before the Normandy landings, First Army ordered that enemy materiel captured in the campaign be safeguarded in precisely the same way as U.S. Government property, but no important quantities of the matériel were in the hands of First Army units before the breakout from the beachhead at the end of July. Thereafter both First and Third Armies captured considerable amounts of food and POL, which were issued directly to the troops since Allied supplies were short. On 8 September 1944 the 12th Army Group gave each army authority to use any captured matériel found within the army sector, either for military or civil affairs purposes, and shortly thereafter the First Army quartermaster transferred 7,600 tons of captured food to civil affairs, for civilian needs in urban areas.72
With transition to a more static tactical situation, reports of captured quartermaster-type enemy materiel became frequent. The QM, Third Army, organized a captured enemy matériel guard and inventory detail within his Field Service Section on zo September, and on
October the First Army quartermaster created a Captured Materiel Section
within the Supply Division. This staff unit of two officers and five enlisted men operated as an information center on captured supplies. It conducted field investigations through six QM intelligence teams, each composed of one officer and sixteen enlisted men. The enlisted men came from the 235th and 999th Salvage Collecting Companies. The officers were technical service replacements borrowed from the First Army replacement depot, which had a surplus of technical service officers. Their duties consisted of following up leads on possible locations of enemy supplies, making inventories of whatever was found, guarding the property, and evacuating previously unreported types of enemy equipment through intelligence channels. The Captured Materiel Section circulated the inventories to the appropriate QM sections and to other technical services, including G-5. Army agencies desiring captured supplies were responsible for transportation thereof, since the Captured Materiel Section was not a supply section and never became involved in storage or physical transfers of equipment. Whatever could not be used within First Army was released through the G-4 Section to COMZ. Apparently the G-4 consolidated Quartermaster surpluses with those of the other technical services, and no information through this channel ever became available to Littlejohn. Fortunately, McNamara also sent information copies of his surplus releases to the 58th QM Base Depot, which received most of these supplies. On 15 November, having seen an inventory of captured matériel stocks on hand at Huy, Belgium, under control of the 58th QMBD, Littlejohn commented: “This is the first specific information I have been able to obtain as to what is happening to captured enemy supplies.”73 He directed that a 30-day supply be set aside for ADSEC and First Army, and that the balance of the stocks be shipped to the rear, where they were badly needed to supply prisoner labor at work in the COMZ depots. On 1 December, he formally designated Q-175 at Le Mans as the key depot for captured supplies for the entire Continent.
In the Third and Seventh Armies, captured supplies were handled somewhat differently. Third Army designated a captured matériel warehouse in Nancy, to be used by all technical services, and during December organized a Quartermaster Captured Enemy Materiel Detachment, which operated in forward areas somewhat similar to the QM intelligence teams of First Army. This unit concentrated enemy matériel at warehouses under its own control, notably at Metz, and was both a staff and an operating unit. In Seventh Army, captured supplies were handled simply as a separate category of salvage and reported by tons every fifteen days as part of the salvage backlog. During April 1945, apparently to conform to the practices of the northern group of armies, the CONAD quartermaster established a section to locate, report on, consolidate, and warehouse captured enemy matériel. This was an entirely new function in CONAD and was performed
by personnel of the QM remount depot assigned to that headquarters.74
The postwar evaluation by the US-FET General Board was that policy directives, procedures, and responsibilities regarding captured enemy material had not been spelled out in enough detail before operations began. In effect, enemy materiel constituted a separate source of supply for the troops units, not subject to the veto of G-4 or the technical services. The 12th Army Group quartermaster reported that he was obliged to disapprove a great many requests for items in excess of TAE allowances, especially tentage, kitchen equipment, and one-burner stoves. It was natural under the circumstances for the combat units to retain whatever they captured in these categories, and equally natural for the Chief Quartermaster to complain that he never received such items.
Apart from their real needs, combat troops apparently kept a good many items merely as souvenirs. In particular, the practice of stripping POW’s of all equipment to insure that they had no concealed weapons went much too far. On 17 October Littlejohn wrote to Smithers: “I have no defense for [requisitions to support] POW’s turned over to me practically naked. What happens to their mess gear? And their blankets? They must have had something, somewhere. It looks to me as though we are not being sufficiently energetic forward in taking inventories and putting guards over enemy property. By the time that we arrive, the local inhabitants have taken whatever was available. ... My office is also at fault in not having followed this captured enemy property problem sufficiently. I am taking action. ...” The next day he ordered that the Captured Materiel Branch of the Storage and Distribution Division intervene energetically in the current operations in ADSEC and the armies. He concluded: “We cannot continue to bring supplies for POW’s from the States when there are supplies here. I cannot defend getting supplies when same are being dissipated as they are at the present time.”75
Unfortunately, these statements were all too true. In March, when SHAEF directed that a study be made of clothing and equipment requirements for non-U.S. personnel, the Chief Quartermaster listed his assets from all sources. Two requisitions on the United States had been disapproved, and he pointed out that everything that was available was needed for POW’s alone and nothing would be available for other categories unless favorable action was taken on new requisitions he had submitted recently. In justification of those requisitions, he had submitted the same statistics forwarded to SHAEF. The clothing and equipment available through June 1945 to support 842,000 prisoners and 305,000 miscellaneous Allied personnel—a very conservative strength estimate—included the major items listed below. The small proportion derived from captured enemy sources is particularly striking:76
| Item | On hand captured | On hand Class X | Salvage expectancy | Total assets | |
| Drawers, wool and cotton | 32,746 | 519,957 | 961,259 | 1,513,962 | |
| Shirts, wool and cotton | 2,598 | 81,950 | 135,553 | 220,101 | |
| Shoes, pair | 3,055 | 731,950 | 0 | 735,005 | |
| Trousers, wool and cotton | 7,770 | 238,136 | 312,810 | 558,716 | |
| Work gloves (all types) | 800 | 257,671 | 84,808 | 343,279 | |
| Raincoats (all types) | 0 | 0 | 181,598 | 181,598 | |
| Blankets | 456 | 60 | 27,627 | 28,143 | |
| Mess gear | 47,312 | 1,215 | 10,328 | 58,855 | |
| Shelter halves | 8 | 0 | 701 | 709 | |
| Towel | 0 | 3,386 | 0 | 3,386 | |
During the closing phase of the Ardennes battle, the Chief Quartermaster enjoyed one minor success in the generally unsatisfactory sphere of captured matériel. He was at dinner with General Bradley when an aide brought in a radiogram from a German corps commander who wanted to surrender his whole corps. Bradley passed the message to his guest with the remark: “More trouble for the Quartermaster.” Littlejohn recommended that Bradley decline to accept the surrender unless the Germans brought in all of their unit mess equipment, and also all individual mess gear, blankets, and bedding. The surrender was arranged on those terms.77